Balik Kampung Quandary

I am sitting in my room typing this post when I should have been on the bus heading towards Muar. It's a long story, or a short one if you read fast enough . Well here goes...

The following events took place between 6:05pm and 9:05pm tonight.

No Way Out

The Balik Kampung fever created by the proximity of the two festive holidays next week brought the causeway to a standstill today. Vicky and I, holding 7:45pm bus tickets to Muar, were left trapped at the Kranji MRT Station as the non-availability of busses left us helplessly stranded.

Arriving at he Kranji Station at 6:05pm, we thought we had time on our hands as we quickly took our place at the head of the 170 bus queue. But after standing at the same spot for 45 long minutes, we realized that our ride out of Singapore had played us out. Soon the reason became obvious; a massive jam had built up along the road towards the checkpoing.nt. The jam could even be seen from the MRT station, some 2km away from the checkpoint. We then made the decision to abort out trip tonight and make another attempt early tomorrow morning.

Post Mortem : The jam at the Woodlands Checkpoint today was a disaster waiting to happen. The final stretch of road leading towards the checkpoint was divided to 'car lane' on the left, 'bus lane' on the right and a lane for trucks in the center. Having those lumbering behemoths queuing up in the middle of the road provides an uphill challenge for cars and busses to get into their rightful lanes. So throw in a poorly located junction and a broken down truck, and ‘wah lah’ you’re served with an almost impossible traffic puzzle to figure out.

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Christmas comes early.

No, this is not about James Bond and a certain Dr C.Jones.

Well, after we decided to postpone our trip back to Muar, our hungry stomachs led us to West Mall in Bukit Batok. And behold, standing tall in the atrium of West Mall was a Christmas Tree in the making. It’s not even November and we haven’t even had a bite of those tasty Thosai and fragrant Ketupats (with peanut sauce!), but yet this giant effigy of commercialism-plagued Christmas has already been dusted and set-up in this holy temple of money-swindling deities.

Dressing up for Christmas in West Mall

Retailers just can’t wait for the next big money spending season – Christmas Sales. Hari Raya and Deepavali just don’t spell ‘splurge’ in Singapore, so they're easily forgotten in the many commercial hubs. You don’t get those sentimental ‘Petronas’ commercials here on TV, the big malls don’t blare loud ‘Selamat Hari Raya’ songs on their sound system and you don’t have those large Ramadhan markets in the heartlands. The only places that seem to celebrate these two important festivals are Geylang Serai and Little India. What happened to nationwide celebrations ? One things for sure, the main thing on most people’s mind right now is how to spend the holiday break next week.

Anyway, leaving you with a quote from our favourite British spy.

“If you can't trust a Swiss banker, then what's the world coming to?”

James Bond

The Day of the Angry Red Zit

We all have our bad hair days or days which we dread being the unwilling center of attraction for some abnormal physical trait.

Today was that day for me. An angry red zit was sitting right smack in the center of my forehead. So as expected, stares were inevitable, so too were stupid comments and dumb questions.

Witty Colleague : “Oh, did you get hit by somebody ? Heh heh, must be your girlfriend.”

Colleague acting thoughtful : “Hmmm … must be stress or it could just be the heaty food.”

Well, can’t blame them, colleagues are among the most perceptive people around. Any boring work day certainly deserves a talking point to break the monotony. So nothing really escapes their eyes and news spread faster than one can recite the National Pledge.

Among the things that attract attention :

1) Wearing the same attire to work for girls. For guys, office fashion means rotating among a few coloured shirts, so they are usually overlooked.

2) New haircut, new hairstyle or new hair colour. You’ll get either gushing compliments or polite smiles.

3) An injured body part, an outbreak of skin rashes, or anything else that will make people feel glad they aren’t in your shoes.

Anyway here’s a lame zit joke to end this post.

Q: What do you call a zit on a blonde's ass?
A: A brain tumor.

Farewell Kak Endon

The Cult of Jin Yong

Blogging is taking a back seat at the moment. I’m on a VCD-watching marathon and the series I’m watching is Jin Yong’s She4 Diao1 Ying1 Xiong2 Zhuan4 (The Legend of the Condor Heroes). This 2005 version of this famous story is currently showing on Channel U on Saturday night.

I must admit that I have a weakness for Jin Yong’s stories. Since I can’t read Chinese Novels, the next best thing to do is to watch it acted out on screen, preferably with English Subtitles. Anyway as there is no guarantee that I’m able to stay home come every Saturday night, I have started my own mini-collection of VCD series. Other series owned include ‘The Heavenly Sword and Dragon Saber’ and ‘The Demi God and Semi Devils’ (weird translation of Tian1 Long2 Ba4 Bu4).

Now back to the TV Screen where Guo Jing is practicing his Dragon Subduing Palms (Xiang Long Shi Ba Zan) …

Childhood Memories. It’s all about FOOD.

Thanks to funky cookies for keeping me busy with this meme assignment. Had to dig deep into my food archives, so here it goes …

Ice Cream

No Haagen Daz or Ben & Jerries back then but we were fortunate to have other forms of ice-cream available. We had the ice cream on sticks (ice-cream stick collection was popular then), ice cream on cones (sold by the roving ice cream vendors on carts), ice-cream in cups, ice-cream in tubs and even home made ice cream (rare attempts on ice cream making by my folks).

The most popular and affordable back then was the ice cream (more like ice stick without cream) made of frozen sweet syrup in a plastic tube. You can suck on it, bite on it or wait for it to melt and then drink the syrup down. My favourite was the orange-flavoured stick with a piece of ‘seng mueh’ (asam seed) at the bottom. For just 10 to 20 sen, this was a popular treat during hot sunny afternoons.

Pork cooked with chili and dried shrimp

This has to be my favourite home-cooked dish. The pork has to have both fat and lean parts, and then cooked in chili and dried shrimp. It becomes this juicy-spicy-sweet-salty-tasty meat dish. I used to slowly pick at this dish after finishing my rice, selecting only the juicy fat chunks out to eat. This dish taste good with rice, as sandwich filling or just by itself.

Canteen Food

In primary school, I had the privilege of avoiding all the oily unhygienic canteen food. You see, my parents took the trouble each day to prepare or buy food for me. So during recess time, while the rest of the kids queued up at the canteen to buy their daily fare of mee goreng, tauhu sumbat and syrup water, I will find a spot to munch on my kaya bread or on some other days a peanut butter sandwich.

Then came the compulsory Chinese Language classes which were held after school in higher primary. Suddenly I had to buy my own lunch and from where else but the canteen. But not just any canteen, the secondary school canteen which was way ahead in food variety and standard was open to us primary school kids after school. Finally ‘wholesome’ canteen food ! Had many happy afternoons gorging on the MSG-laden noodles, curry rice, Kickapoo bottled drinks and Keropok.

Dumpling Fest

I know the poet guy jumped into the river, but if not for his suicidal act, they wouldn’t have come out with this delicious tasting ‘fish food’. The dumpling festival comes once a year, but the wait is sure worth it (though nowadays dumplings are sold whole year long). My favourite since childhood would be the ‘Nyonya Zhang’ , followed closely by the ‘Bak Zhang’ and the ‘Kee Zhang’ (dipped in Kaya spread). I still remember how my neighbour used to wake up at unearthly hours to make dumplings outside my window. She made the most tasty ‘Nyonya Zhangs’ around and my parents used to buy some from her every year.

Breakfast Memories

Breakfast was always a blur on those cold school mornings. It was a standard breakfast serving every morning. A cup of hot morning tonic (3 scoops of powdered milk and one tablespoon of milo powder) and one half boiled egg. My sister and I was not too fond of the egg and I would always pour it down my throat as quick as possible. My sister’s approach would be slightly different. She would remonstrate, eye the egg suspiciously, put on a horrified face before finally drinking down the slimy liquid as if it was burning ale.

Now I can add my name into the list of people who has completed this meme. (just list 5 names including yours)

1) Oswego Tea
2) Masak-Masak
3) Insane Babe in the City KL
4) Funky Cookies
5) Teh Tarik Satu

And to pass the baton on to three lucky fellows, hmmm … the more the merrier, so here are the five that I hope will work on this meme assignment.


1) Beer Brat
2) Self Refresh
3) Insane Squirrel
4) Charles
5) Hot Choc


Update : Sorry, I left out the Rules of the meme -
1) List down 5 childhood memories of food.
2) And in the tradition of this meme, list the 4 previous taggers before yourself and then your own name at no.5.
3) Tag 3 (or more) other bloggers to continue this meme.
All the best !

3:59.4

‘Blink and you miss a sprint. The 10,000 metres is a lap after lap of waiting. Theatrically, the mile is just the right length – beginning, middle, end, a story unfolding.’

Sebastien Coe

To be truthful I’m not much into running. As I was growing up, the only times I went running was when it was required for during Pendidikan Jasmani(P.E class) and Sukantara (Mass Participation Pre-Sports Day Event) . In secondary school, the furthest I had to run was 1500m, 5 laps around the school field, which first appeared to be quite a gargantuan task for someone who never gone beyond a lap in primary school. For this annual physical test, my whole class would start off at the same time. The faster boys will set the pace, followed by the casual joggers and finally the stragglers who will then fight for the honour of not finishing last. Only much later did I discover the joys of jogging, but that’s another story.

When I recently heard the brief story of the 4 Minute Mile, I was intrigued. It was about a quest for the impossible, to break 4 minutes in running the Mile. Searching the story on the web did not yield much result. Fortunately recently while browsing through the sports section in the local Library, I found the book that had all the answers and much more. The book was aptly titled ‘3:59.4’.

For centuries, men had romanced the Mile, at times flirting near the 4 minute mark, but none had succeeded in conquering the Holy Grail of running. Great runners like Paavo Nurmi, Jack Lovelock, Sydney Wooderson, Gunder Haegg and Arne Andersson had set many records in the 4 Mile Race but their records always fell short of the elusive 4 minutes.

Then on a wet and windy day on Thursday, 6 May, 1954, on the cinder-tracks of Oxford’s Iffley Road, three men made an attempt to carve their names on the annals of sport’s history. Their names were Chris Brasher, Chris Chataway and Roger Banister. As planned, the two pace makers pushed Roger through the 4-lap race, before he let out his typical late burst of speed to hit the tape ahead of the field. Then the loudspeaker crackled and the crowd went silent…

“Ladies and Gentlemen, here is the result of event 9, the one mile race. First, number 41, R.G.Banister of the Amatuer Atheletic Association and formerly of Exeter and Merton Colleges, with a time which is a new meeting and track record, and which, subject to ratification, will be a new English Native, British National, British-Allcomers, European, British Empire and World Record. The time is three …”

Pandemonium drowned the rest of the announcement. The long quest for the four-minute mile was over. Time had stopped for Roger Bannister at 3:59.4.

Since that fateful day, in just a short spate of 50 years after the first sub-four minute mile, countless athletes have ran the Mile under 4 minutes. The current world record of 3:43.13 is held by Hicham El Gerrouj. Roger just had paved the way, to make the impossible possible.

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The mile race has always held a special place in the hearts of atheletes and spectators in the English-speaking world. There is magic in the unit of one, in the simple measure of distance rooted deep in Britain’s history. In the age of metrication, the mile run is now the only non-metric distance still officially recognized for world records.

Excerpt from John Byrant’s ‘3:59.4’

Wednesday's Child

Monday's child is fair of face,
Tuesday's child is full of grace,
Wednesday's child is full of woe,
Thursday's child has far to go,
Friday's child is loving and giving,
Saturday's child must work for a living,
But the child that's born on the Sabbath day,
Is fair and wise and good and gay.

Had to terminate someone at work today. Never easy each time. I ask myself, is the reason or crime so great to warrant a termination ? Is he worth another chance ? Is reform beyond the reach of all imperfect humans ? or am I too soft to even have such thoughts ?

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Anyway here's an appeal to all dear readers to support Malaysia SPCA's online petition for ammendments to the law to protecting animals in Malaysia.

SPCA is appealing that the Animal Ordinance 1953 is amended to first of all increase the fine to a realistic fee (after all a pedigree puppy costs about RM1000 – 2000 today) and imposes a BAN on KEEPING ANIMALS following prosecution for CRUELTY.

Please don't let indifference or ignorance lead to further cruelty towards innocent animals. Put a stop to it now by clicking on my home-made banner below.

Sunday by the Bay

It was another wedding this weekend. A marriage ceremony(ROM) cum luncheon for two close friends, Julian and Tsumain. The private affair was held way up in the sky, at the 37^th flr of Pan Pacific Hotel to be exact, at a restaurant called Hai Tien Lo which had this wonderful panoramic view of Marina bay.

By the power invested in me, I hereby ...

Short Flashback : I have known Julian and Tsumain ever since we were first initiated together into the Singapore school system in May 1994. We were part of this group of 14 eighteen year-olds who were assigned to stay in Balestier Students’ hostel. Banding together on a staple of bridge sessions, pranks, midnight gatherings and daily hostel fare(also known as buffet dinners!), we managed to survive the first common test and later on the A-levels.

Hai Tien Lo - at the top of Pan Pac

Journey of Faith. Entrance to ACM

After lunch, Vicky and I went over to the Asian Civilisation Museum for the ‘Journey of Faith’ exhibition. It was a neat collection of art and artifacts from the Vatican displayed in a dark sombre atmosphere(with accompanying spotlights of course). If you are expecting ‘Da Vinci Code’ type of exhibits, you’ll be disappointed. No Mona Lisa painting or Last Supper Chalice exhibited here. And you won’t find albino ‘Opus Dei’ Monks running around the place either. But you’ll find a number of art pieces with significant historical value and a wonderful model of St.Peter’s Basilica displayed there. One more week before the exhibition ends, so hurry down if you want to have a look at the sacred collection.

Singapore River

The 'Durian' amidst blue and green

Blogging Woes

*scratch* tinker tinker *scratch*

My Editing Post page in blogger is appearing funny(it underwent it’s own extreme makeover!). Been playing around with my browser settings in an attempt to resolve this problem, but the problem remains.

Firstly the editing icons line up vertically instead of the neat horizontal layout. Second the ‘Compose’ and ‘Edit HTML’ buttons hide behind the Title field. I almost could not go into HTML mode until I used Mozilla to view the site. However both IE and Mozilla still show this screwed-up layout.

Nevertheless I will not let this hinder me from posting new posts. However if there are any brilliant souls out there who know how to get around this problem, please enlighten this poor sod.